EPILOGUE.
If you have followed me thus far, kind readers, my thanks are due to you for your constancy. We must now bid farewell to each other. Not only have the Memoirs I so presumptuously undertook to write degenerated into a diary, but even that diary must now give place to a correspondence, the nature of which will forever remain the secret of two individuals.
If you care to know how this came about, grant me your indulgence yet a little longer.
They left me an unconscionable time to myself that day. It had grown dark, and a deathlike stillness reigned around. Even the most indefatigable songster among my birds had ceased singing, and, all crouched up, was asleep on his perch. How I envied the pretty little creature’s peace of mind.
At last I heard the sound of footsteps approaching my door, the tiny step of my Duphot.
“Ah, ma chère!” she said, mournful and reproachful, as she came in and bade me go with her to my parents. So wild a beating of the heart I do not suppose anyone has ever experienced as that with which I obeyed her behest; it was too agonizing, too dreadful.
Besides papa and mamma, I found my brother and sister and Baron Schwarzburg. He stood up as I came in; I, too, remained standing. Papa began:
“Paula, your mother and I, not desiring to incur a second time the reproach that the happiness of one of our children——”
“Or what she considers to be happiness,” broke in mamma.
“Is of less importance to us,” continued papa, “than it should be to parents who love their children, had therefore given our permission to Baron Schwarzburg to speak to you before he left. It has resulted——”
“Differently from what we anticipated,” interpolated mamma.
“And, as I hear, you are agreed in the idea——”
“Or in imagining,” suggested mamma.
“That you are made for each other,” said papa.
To which I said “Yes.”
“Yes,” repeated the Baron Schwarzburg, deeply moved.
“Well then, if two people are really made for each other—a thing which very rarely happens—there is but one thing to be done. But it remains to be proved; and proof requires time. Endurance is the proof; so you must wait.”
“We will wait,” said Schwarzburg.
“Three years,” said papa.
My head turned. I could not realize my happiness. So it was not, as I had with fear and trembling so fully expected to hear: “Do it if you will. But give up all hope of our consent!”
“Only three years?” I asked.
“Not a day less,” said mamma.
And I: “Why, that is nothing! We would wait ten years if you required it, dearest father and mother. We are happy beyond everything, and have no other wish than——”
“Speak for yourself!” put in Bernhard.
Baron Schwarzburg was looking decidedly alarmed, and I asked him: “Do you think so? To wait—wait for each other—what could be more heavenly?”
“The shorter, the more heavenly,” he returned.
Elizabeth, coming up to me, had taken me in her arms. “See, what a wise, sensible child it is! Three years’ probation are too little for her; she prefers ten. Ah, she knows death is easy, but marriage is a venture!”
“Do not jest, countess,” interposed Schwarzburg. “I consent to three years—not a day less, but not a day more.” His voice faltered, but a strong, unswerving determination gleamed in his eyes.
“So it is settled, and so it shall remain. A few hours ago,” he continued, turning to me, “I had counted the happiness that has come to me as utterly unattainable; but now I have known it; it is mine, and I hold it fast, as fast as I am wont to hold the things most precious to me; and you are the most precious thing of all to me, Paula, and, I well know, the most sure.” He took my hand, “In three years; but then; for life.”
“From now; for life.” I could say no more.
He took leave of us all. How sweet and natural Elizabeth was with him! Oh, dear sister mine, can I ever thank you enough?
Only when the door had closed upon him, did the consciousness of our parting fall with leaden weight upon my heart. He had gone, and we had scarce—nay, we had not even said good-by to each other. An unspeakable sense of yearning came over me; I fought with the tears which choked me. No one said a word.
Suddenly Bernhard said laughingly: “Why, he has actually gone without his hat!”
All at once it flashed across me where it had been left; and I ran to the great drawing room to fetch it. To the drawing room they came, papa and the baron—and how it happened I have not the least conception, but the next instant I was in the arms of my betrothed, pressed close to his heart, and he was showering kisses upon me—hot, passionate kisses.
Papa was standing by us; no longer the stern papa of the last few weeks, but the tender, loving one of old, and of all time to come.
I had only to look into his dear face to straightway regain my former boundless confidence in him; and in the strength of this confidence to say:
“May I write to him, papa?”
“And I to her?” asked Schwarzburg.
Papa hesitated.
“Why? what for? See——” he broke off, sighed, looked at us both with strong emotion, then with all the loving intonation of old came the dear, priceless formula:
“Well, do whatever you like.”
THE END.